In an effort to be helpful and perhaps foster further discussion, I thought I would launch a weekly blog post that would share some articles on a host of topics I found interesting throughout the week. Typically this will be between three and five things I came across that could make for some good weekend reading. Hope you find this approach useful. Here we go for the week of April 6, 2015:

Even though the original post is from November, it showed up in my twitter feed this week. Simon Sinek is the author of great books like Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last. He is also a very inspiring speaker. Here he offers his approach to delivering powerful presentations. My favorite tip is: Show up to give, not to take!

Marketing has become trickier than ever and the same may be said for customer service. Why? I think the connectedness of the world has changed consumers expectations while widening the possibilities of brands and people to go beyond expectations when it comes to communications. A SlideShare presentation by Gary Vaynerchuk got me thinking about this topic and much of the data shared in it makes so much sense.

Consider that three out of four consumers choose a vendor based on free shipping alone (slide 47). I can relate to this stat as I have been pleasantly surprised numerous times when dealing with Amazon or Zappos and finding out at check out that my order qualifies for free shipping. I always pay attention to how much shipping will be so imagine the feeling when I find out it is going to be free!